Category: Start Up Nation

Tel Aviv: Startup Nation has done it again, releasing an exciting App this week to great fanfare. ‘That’s Gold!’ is an application for Iphone and Android users that alerts you whenever noted BDS supporter/Deep Thinker Ariel Gold says or does something ridiculous. The Daily Freier wandered down to that WeWork office near Rothschild (no not that one, the other one) in order to meet the creators of this amazing application.

“With our ‘That’s Gold!‘ app, we provide our customer with a one-stop shop to stay up to date on the latest dumb shit that Ariel came up with.” explained lead engineer Pinchas G. “Our state of the art algorithm pulls data from Ariel’s Twitter feed, Code Pink press releases, and the comments section for Hen Mazzig’s pet rabbit’s Instagram page.” Pinchas feverishly typed a line of code on his Macintosh and continued. “The 2.0 version even has a feature that notifies you whenever she uses a Yiddish phrase incorrectly.”

Well if you think this App is selling like latkes in December, you are correct. The Daily Freier ran into a number of happy customers on Rothschild Boulevard.

Unfortunately, not all of the feedback was positive. The Daily Freier stumbled upon Alert Local Ronit S. as she desperately tried to silence her beeping Iphone at the coffee kiosk on the corner of Allenby. “Ariel just got into a one-way argument with Jason Greenblatt and now my phone won’t shut off…..thanks a lot.”

The Daily Freier looks forward to Ms. Gold’s inevitable response to this story, because it would no doubt trigger this app, thereby becoming the most Meta thing like ever.

Tel Aviv: There’s a hot new Netflix film called “Red Sea Diving Resort”, and people in Israel can’t stop talking about it! The film tells the story of the Mossad’s clandestine operation to rescue Ethiopian Jews in the 1980’s and bring them home to Israel. But perhaps the most unbelievable part is that in order to make the mission succeed, the Mossad set up a really good hotel. That’s right. An Israeli hotel that was affordable AND with good customer service! The Daily Freier wandered around Central Tel Aviv pestering random strangers for their feelings on this crazy tale.

“Amazing!” enthused Ron C. as he sat on a bench on Dizengoff. “The way the Mossad went “deep undercover” by teaching their agents to treat the customers like ‘customers’ instead of ‘somebody stopping me from taking a smoke break.’ I mean, this didn’t just happen overnight. Ron took a drag from his cigarette and continued. “The flashback scenes were perfect: The meticulous planning, including a mock-up of the hotel where the waiters were specially trained not to throw their menus at the customers and demand tips! I felt like I was there!”

“I was sitting on the edge of my seat with suspense!” remarked Alert Local Ronit S. “I mean, the most suspenseful scene? Probably when they almost blew their cover after a customer asked for ice and Chris Evans laughed and said ‘This isn’t America’. You could just cut the tension with a knife until he recovered, smiled, said he was just joking, andbrought a full carafe of ice.”

The Daily Freier then solicited the opinion of tourist Jessica H. “So the scene where the unsuspecting European tourists check in, and the Mossad is running Zodiac boats just 200 meters away? That was cool, but the whole time I was thinking, ‘Wait, someone cleaned their rooms!’ Also, Mossad Headquarters got a native English speaker to proofread all of the signs in the hotel so that they didn’t just say ridiculous nonsense! I couldn’t believe it!”

As the article went to print, several Facebook groups popped up with Israelis asking the Mossad to take over hotels in Mitzpe Ramon, Eilat, and basically all of Tiberias.

Tel Aviv, Montefiore: A beloved Tel Aviv literary institution is recovering nicely from a month-long bout of Writer’s Block. After weeks of not having goofy yet funny ideas pinging around our respective minds, the Staff of the Daily Freier are now firing on all cylinders. The creativity is happening! We’re busy type-type-typing away! Baruch HaShem!

Oh Yeah….. in completely unrelated news, Rabbi Shmuley’s daughter Chana just opened a Sex Shop in Tel Aviv. Not sure why we bothered to mention this, as it has nothing to do with our miraculous recovery from Writer’s Block, which we attribute to plenty of bikram yoga, a juice cleanse in the Negev, and the Keto Diet. But sure…. Chana, who is clearly carrying on the Boteach family tradition of keeping a low profile/avoiding sensationalism, just opened “Kosher Sex” on Montefiore Street. Plus, it doubles as a clothing boutique!

Tel Aviv: The District Court of Tel Aviv has dismissed the lawsuit brought against El Al Airlines by Hatari, Iceland’s Eurovision Entry. You see, Hatari, a band of woke rich kids committed in their own special way to social justice, decided to wave the Palestinian flag because they couldn’t find Narnia’s flag during a live Eurovision broadcast. And Israelis, being Israelis, decided to throw some serious shade, culminating in El Al allegedly giving the band purposely poor seats and service on their flight home. Hatari then responded by filing a lawsuit, which was subsequently tossed out today. You see, El Al has this tiny, and let us just stress VERY UNDESERVED reputation for…. you may want to sit down for this….. poor customer service. We know… crazy, right? (Editor’s Note: Just to be fair, we called El Al’s Toll Free Number about this rumor, but the woman yelled at us and then hung up.) So the Court resolved that there was in fact no data set of “good El Al Customer Service” with which to compare Hatari’s accusation of crappy service. The Daily Freier walked down to the courthouse to get all the facts.

We spoke to Tamar C., a bailiff at the courthouse, who read from the Court’s decision. “It is the Court’s opinion that the Band Hatari, henceforth to be referred to as ‘the plaintiff’, did not adequately prove they were purposely and maliciously served poor food, because none of us in the Courthouse can remember receiving ‘a good meal’ from El Al…. not even Sarit from the cleaning staff, and her brother works in El Al’s catering office.”

When the Daily Freier noted that the plaintiff had accused El Al of purposely placing them near extra-rude passengers, Tamar continued: “It is the Court’s opinion that the ‘very rude’ Israeli passengers the plaintiff was seated next to would not even make the tryouts for Israel’s ‘Bad Travelers’ All-Star Team.”

Welcome to Israel all you Eurovision Weirdos! You’re going to LOVE it here! Let’s get ready for a week of indecipherable songs by Icelandics paired with costumes that someone stole from a sex dungeon! Ha Ha! Just kidding! Not really! Anyhoo, the Daily Freier is here to help you enjoy Israel to the fullest! So without further ado, let’s get started!

Ben Gurion Airport: Hopefully you flew here on El Al, which is pretty good preparation for the tip-top customer service that you can expect here in Israel! That flight attendant who keeps responding to your requests like you’re a particularly slow 4 year old? Her name is Nava and she (probably) doesn’t actually dislike you. That’s just the Sabra charm! And if you had the good fortune to fly here with some Israelis, well things are getting even better! You can spot them when they jump out of their seats to grab their bags out of the overhead compartments about the time you’re flying over Cyprus.

Taxis: Remember when you told your friends you hoped to “hook up” with a cute local? Well, congratulations because you’re about to get screwed! Seriously, take the train from the airport to Tel Aviv. As you leave Customs and enter the arrival hall, it’s to your left. There are kiosks where you can buy a ticket to any Tel Aviv station for about 3 Euros (Editor’s Note: We apologize for departing satire to provide actual good advice. We will try not to do it again.)

Israeli Men: Ladies, the men of Israel want you to know that despite any differences in religion or language or culture, they are still willing to have sex with you. Like right now. They got time, their Startup doesn’t open for another hour and their bike is still charging. Not to put too fine a point on it, but our city’s main park is shaped like a penis. A woman pointed this out to us, and they tend to notice details.

Israeli Women: OK, we’ve been here a while and we’re still trying to figure this one out. Native Israeli men seem equally bewildered. Please email us any clues.

LGBT Visitors: Tel Aviv is normally pretty gay. But as of this morning, and thanks to a team of selfless volunteers, it is now officially Gay Enough for Eurovision!

—Jerusalem: (Snore). Whoah, sorry, we fell asleep for a moment. But really, Jerusalem is an A-Ma-Zing city full of nightlife, and the absolute highlight is the chance to drink beer in a shuk at night. Really.

…… Well that’s all the advice we have for now. Tune in throughout the week as we share various pieces of fact-based news and advice!

(Disclaimer: No Mizrahi LGBTQ Indigenous Rights Activists were harmed in the making of this photo)

By Emily Goldstein

Last Updated 5/8/2019 at 12:30 PM

Tel Aviv, Kikar Dizengoff: “Still not Gay Enough for Eurovision”: these are the words that haunt Tel Aviv City Management as they frantically prepare for next week’s extravaganza of bizarre songs and fashion hate crimes celebration of musical diversity and style. With kickoff only days away, the Tel Aviv Municipality Tourism Office has trained a team of experts in order to Gay Up the city. Spokesperson Galit K. described her strategy as we walked around Dizengoff Square looking for a nice brunch place.

“The celebrities coming here is great, but it doesn’t help meet our targeted metrics. I mean, does Madonna even HAVE a following in the Gay community?So we knew we needed outside help.”

The Daily Freier challenged Galit that Tel Aviv seems pretty Gay already, but she was adamant. “You’re making a common mistake. A lot of people have a difficult time figuring out if Someone is Gay or Just Being Israeli. We address this issue every year at Pride Week. That’s why we trained up a team of experts in order to make every day Tel Aviv activities a bit gayer. We really want to thank the Swedish Ambassador for hosting our workshops. We also could not have done this without help from the Technion’s prestigious Streisand Center for Gay Science, who postponed their reverse engineering of that amazing appletini one of them had in the Hamptons two summers ago in order to help us.“

The Daily Freier was able to follow one such expert, Hen Mazzig, as he walked across the city with a clipboard and a bag of accoutrements. We soon passed that statue on the corner of Dizengoff and Frishman. “OK, that statue is just fine as it is.” Hen explained as he switched a cafe’s music selection to Eyal Golan.

We then asked Hen what his biggest challenges were this week. “While most of Tel Aviv is already kinda Gay, there are pockets of the city that just don’t get it.” Hen noted as he handed a restaurant owner a Tax Voucher for any Brunch with Bottomless Mimosas that goes past 1 PM. “Yesterday I saw three guys on the street who clearly haven’t been to the gym in a month. Honestly, for a moment I thought that I was in Jerusalem.“

News of Tel Aviv’s efforts have not gone unnoticed in the Progressive Jewish Blogosphere, with some particularly pointed criticism from some circles. “So wait, is Hen volunteering or getting paid?” asked Forward contributor Eden Washing-Pink. “Because from what I know, Hen has a lot of Shekels.”

“This attempt to gloss over the Occupation with Gayness is problematic and points to deeper issues in Israel-Palestine.” chided Forward editor Mazkeret-Batya Calgon. “I plan to live-blog my critiques of this propaganda.” Mazkeret-Batya then leaned in and lowered her voice. “Also, can you guys help me get free tickets and backstage passes to opening night? I mean, I AM the editor of a Jewish publication on the front lines against anti-Semitism.“

Tel Aviv, The Old North: The city of Tel Aviv has a little more equality these days, and people are excited. You see, it used to be that in order to park like a total dick, you needed to be able to afford a car. No Longer! Today with the huge success of rental companies like Mobike, Bird, and Lime, parking like a sociopath is within everyone’s reach. The Daily Freier walked the streets of Tel Aviv to find out just how big a deal this is.

“I love the freedom that this gives me.” explained local dick Dan G. as he dropped his Lime on the sidewalk in front of a cafe. “I always thought making other people’s’ lives difficult with bad parking was just for the rich guys who could afford a car and a permit. But now, I can really make my mark on the city!”

“Not caring about how my actions affected other people used to be so difficult without a car.” noted Ron C. “But with my Bird, it’s so easy making life inconvenient for my fellow Tel Avivians. This is even better than matkot!”

“Annoying my neighbors used to be so hard.” reminisced North Tel Aviv resident Guy S. “But now, with my Bird, I can block paths to schools and create a public hazard on a budget! Only in Israel!”